Community Spirit

The Elmwood Village Farmers Market will hold its seventh annual poster contest to promote the outdoor market’s upcoming 2017 season. Entries for the poster competition are due by 5 p.m. Friday, March 10. Whether you’re a student studying the arts, a professional graphic designer or just someone with a creative streak, you’re invited to submit your design for an 11x17-inch color poster that accurately reflects the feel of the Elmwood Village Farmers Market, sponsored by the Elmwood Village Association.

Mary Queen of Angels School, providing a quality Catholic education for students from Cheektowaga, Buffalo and several surrounding suburbs, is seeking to build corporate partnerships by offering five unique educational sponsorship opportunities.

The school is currently seeking sponsors for its science lab, digital media arts, music and the arts, STREAM (Science, Technology, Religion, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics), and professional development program.

Imagine having only $6.36 a day to spend on food, living in a house that only heated up to 60 degrees, not having reliable transportation, or not owning a winter coat or boots. For more than 200,000 Western New Yorkers, this is daily life.

The Rural Outreach Center (ROC), which serves the southern communities of Western New York, is raising awareness about the challenges of living in poverty through a new community-wide campaign during the month of January 2017 called “ROC Resolutions.” During each week of the month, the spotlight will shine on a different obstacle often encountered by those living in poverty. Week one (Jan. 2-8) will focus on food, while week two (Jan. 9-15) will focus on utilities, week three (Jan. 16-22) on transportation, and week four (Jan. 23-30) on clothing.

Daemen College has been recognized as one of the top military friendly and veteran supportive institutions in the country in two newly released national rankings.

For the eighth consecutive year, Daemen has been selected by Victory Media as a Military Friendly School, which is awarded to top colleges, universities and trade schools in the country for doing the most to embrace student veterans and have dedicated resources to ensure their success in the classroom and beyond graduation.

Daemen has also been named a top school in the 2017 Military Advanced Education and Transition Guide to Colleges and Universities that measures best practices in military and veteran education.

The Rural Outreach Center (ROC) in East Aurora hopes to spread some holiday spirit this Christmas season by asking local individuals, families, businesses and organizations to “adopt” a deserving family and help make their holidays a little brighter.

“This Christmas season we anticipate assisting 12 to 15 families who are actively pursuing their goals toward self-sufficiency,” said ROC Executive Director Frank Cerny. “Those receiving gifts this holiday season will be asked to make a contribution of some sort back to their community as part of the empowerment process. Virtually all participants in the program readily agree to do this as they too want to help others in some way. We call it the ‘pay-it-forward’ portion of the program.”

The Buffalo Chapter of Girl Develop It (GDI Buffalo) will once again host the region’s only all-women hackathon, GDI Hacks powered by AT&T, and has expanded it based on the popularity of last year’s event. The event, which will take place on Saturday, November 12th, 2016 from 8 am - 9 pm at the DIG Innovation Center, will be the second all-women hackathon in the region’s history and will expand the number of participants to 70 and double the number of businesses and nonprofits that can take part to 10. During the hackathon, teams of web developers, innovators, technologists, designers and marketing experts will be challenged to provide several area women and minority owned businesses or nonprofits with new or updated websites that they otherwise could not afford or have the expertise to do on their own.

Daemen College has received an unprecedented $1 million gift from the Paul A. Saffrin Foundation to support the institution’s Center for Sustainable Communities and Civic Engagement, making it the largest private gift in the college’s nearly 70-year history.

In honor of this historic gift to the college, the center has officially been renamed the Paul A. Saffrin Center for Sustainability and Civic Engagement.

“Robust civic engagement contributes to many positive social outcomes, so it is my honor and privilege to support Daemen College as it prepares students to acquire the knowledge, skills, values and motivation to make a difference in society,” said Saffrin.